Argentina attacked before HMS Hermes was disposed of, HMS Invincible was sold, or the landing ships Fearless and Intrepid were withdrawn. The junta nevertheless read British retrenchment as evidence that London would not fight. CVA-01 remains an explicit counterfactual, with no claim that it would certainly have prevented war. A carrier able to operate Hawkeye-type early warning aircraft, Phantoms, and Buccaneers with the planned Type 82 escorts would have posed a larger threat. The full Type 82 design is also judged superior to the Type 42 in radar and combat systems. Two or three carriers, probably three, are suggested as the force needed to make that capability reliably available. Later air groups might even have adopted F-14s, Hornets, or Intruders, but that modernisation path is explicitly uncertain.
Chapter · 46:05-49:39
Falklands signals and the CVA-01 counterfactual
Planned carrier and amphibious-ship withdrawals may have encouraged Argentine conclusions, while a CVA-01 force would have presented a much stronger but unknowable deterrent.